stopped. These people were the ones who had been left behind. The ones who steadfastly refused to leave the dead cities they had been born in. The ones who saw themselves as America’s backbone but who survived on government aid and disability checks. Drug addicts, drunks, and halfwits incapable of performing anything but the simplest of tasks.
Ironically, it was those self-destructive traits that made them so useful. Their inflated sense of worth and victimization was easy to manipulate. When asked what exactly it was they wanted, they either didn’t know or weren’t willing to make the sacrifices necessary to get it. What they did know—with burning certainty—was what they hated: the world that had stolen everything from them.
“You didn’t lose your way of life,” Barnett said. “It was taken from you. The incompetence and corruption in Washington has gotten so bad that an honest hardworking person can’t succeed in this country. That’s not the America I know. It’s not the America we grew up in. The country I remember was one where being honest and hardworking guaranteed success. It guaranteed that you could provide for your families and that your children could expect to do even better.”
She waited for another wave of applause to die down.
“Instead, we spend trillions sending our brave men and women to fight and die overseas. For what? To spread peace and democracy? The people in those countries don’t want peace and democracy. And even if they did, why is this our job? Why aren’t we using that money and our incredible military to fix the problems we have here? Why are we building bridges and power grids in Afghanistan while we watch ours fall apart? They told us these wars and all this nation building was going to keep us safe, but trillions of dollars later, it’s done the opposite. Now we have a madman threatening us with a biological attack. And what’s this administration’s response? To keep doing the same things that haven’t worked in the past.”
She pulled the microphone off its stand and began pacing across the stage. “America’s the strongest country in the history of the world. But even it can’t take this kind of incompetence year after year. Nothing’s unbreakable. So now it’s up to us. This is a democracy. It’s our responsibility to turn this around. To protect our country and change it back into one where good, hardworking people aren’t taken advantage of. They’re rewarded.”
• • •
“You were on fire today,” Kevin Gray said as Barnett slid into the back of the limo across from him. “Reactions look good.”
“Are we going to get decent television coverage?”
“I’m pushing, but political speeches in Iowa aren’t exactly ratings grabbers. One of the British royals just announced she’s pregnant and President Alexander’s out there stumping hard for your opponent. His rally in Texas was quite a bit more successful than we’d anticipated. After almost eight years, he can still pack ’em in.”
“We’ve got to choke him off, Kevin. He’s the past. We have to own the media on this. I don’t want to see that man’s face or hear his redneck drawl on any outlet in America.”
“Alexander was the clear star of the show, Senator. But that’s a good thing. You’re not running against him. Col—” He caught himself before uttering the name of the man who was now almost certain to be her opponent in the general election. She’d forbidden the speaking of it out loud in her presence. “Your opponent looked like a sidekick.”
“Where are we with the anthrax story?” she asked.
The glass separating them from the driver was soundproof, but Gray still leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Our contact in the press has the information. He’s gone through it, and my understanding is that he’s satisfied.”
“So he’s going to run with it.”
Gray nodded, looking a little queasy. “In the next forty-eight hours, the equivalent of a nuclear bomb is going to go off in the press. Mexican cartels smuggling anthrax. NASA and dumb luck keeping it from hitting the street. A former CIA operative shooting DEA agents. It’ll be splashed across virtually every news outlet in the world.”
“And none of it can be traced to us.”
“If anything, it’s going to look like it came from somewhere inside the DEA.”
“You’re sure? That bitch Irene Kennedy has eyes and ears everywhere.”
“She’d have to be psychic. I used a brand-new laptop running a secure, open-source operating system. Heavily encrypted email from anonymous account to anonymous account. And now the laptop’s crushed and